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Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

nature.com

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Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#31

Post by daxorid »

pjc50 wrote: post #24
ta1234567890 wrote: post #3

This is so sad. Any ideas on how stuff like this could realistically be fixed? Are there any incentives that could be put in place? What would be the incentive for the people that have that power to make those changes?

Fracking ban.

Fracking and horizontal drilling are the only things that have kept us out of a global energy crisis.

Without their application to tight oil and gas fields, the world would be firmly on the downslope of the global Hubbert peak right now.

Ban it at your peril.

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#32

Post by st26 »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #3

This is so sad. Any ideas on how stuff like this could realistically be fixed? Are there any incentives that could be put in place? What would be the incentive for the people that have that power to make those changes?

It's mostly political. The conservatives argue no regulation of any kind is needed because the industry will self-regulate and capture all the leaking methane because it's lost money.

(Mysteriously, the methane continues to leak, and oil & gas continues to lobby against requirements to fix the leak)

As a secondary improvement, cheaper monitoring equipment might make the political fight easier to win.

Another improvement, the gas is owned by the public, and I don't believe royalties are paid at the pad but rather further down the line- after the leaks. O&G has little incentive to avoid wasting resources that "belong" to someone else that they have not paid a dime for. Just pump more.

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#34

Post by greglindahl »

tejtm wrote: post #33

Satellite image of burning gas as a "waste product" from five years ago. Note there are no large cities of people there. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/28/article-2269517-17...

The article is about unburned leaking gas, which has an extra-large greenhouse effect. That's why the gas is mostly burned, if it can't be used.

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#35

Post by masteranza »

guelo wrote: post #26
masteranza wrote: post #21

Not saying we shouldn't pay attention when some estimates are wrong, but perhaps it's not the best idea to take an alarmist's attitude: https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/06/hansens-testimony-30th-an...

That blog is much more propagandist than anything James Hansen ever did.

So which facts did he get wrong exactly? Sure, it may looks so, but so far everything I've read on this blog is correct.

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#37

Post by lern_too_spel »

masteranza wrote: post #22
masteranza wrote: post #21

Not saying we shouldn't pay attention when some estimates are wrong, but perhaps it's not the best idea to take an alarmist's attitude: https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/06/hansens-testimony-30th-an...

Also much more on methane in particular: https://motls.blogspot.com/search?q=methane

Scott Aaronson's response to Lubos Motl's skepticism is informative:

"My position is an incredibly simple one: just like with the link between smoking and cancer, or the lack of a link between vaccines and autism, or any other issue where I lack the expertise to evaluate the evidence myself, I’ll go with what certainly looks like an overwhelming consensus among the scientists who’ve studied the matter carefully. Period. If the climate skeptics want to win me over, then the way for them to do so is straightforward: they should ignore me, and try instead to win over the academic climatology community, majorities of chemists and physicists, Nobel laureates, the IPCC, National Academies of Science, etc. with superior research and arguments.

"To this, the skeptics might respond: but of course we can’t win over the mainstream scientific community, since they’re all in the grip of an evil left-wing conspiracy or delusion! Now, that response is precisely where “the buck stops” for me, and further discussion becomes useless. If I’m asked which of the following two groups is more likely to be in the grip of a delusion — (a) Senate Republicans, Freeman Dyson, and a certain excitable string-theory blogger, or (b) virtually every single expert in the relevant fields, and virtually every other chemist and physicist who I’ve ever respected or heard of — well then, it comes down to a judgment call, but I’m 100% comfortable with my judgment."

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1307

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#38

Post by mrfusion »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
24gttghh wrote: post #4

In case you're wondering, burning natural gas does produce ~half the CO2 you would release from burning various types of coal, [0] the dirtiest (yes, much worse than all of the nuclear power accidents combined[1]) of all methods of electricity production. But it still produces CO2! And at the rate at which natural gas is taking over a greater share of the energy production of the world economy, we are still looking a…

In a five year period Methane traps ~100 times more energy than the equivalent quantity of CO2, so not burning Methane because it escapes is far worse than burning it! http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/methane-vs-ca...

But it also doesn’t hang around for that long. Maybe better in the long term to release it than burn it?

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#39

Post by sremani »

daxorid wrote: post #31
pjc50 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fracking ban.

Fracking and horizontal drilling are the only things that have kept us out of a global energy crisis. Without their application to tight oil and gas fields, the world would be firmly on the downslope of the global Hubbert peak right now. Ban it at your peril.

I really feel really bad you are getting down voted. There is lack of understanding of how shale revolution reshaped America and its energy independence here in this forum.

Re: Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

#40

Post by privacypoller »

st26 wrote: post #32
ta1234567890 wrote: post #3

This is so sad. Any ideas on how stuff like this could realistically be fixed? Are there any incentives that could be put in place? What would be the incentive for the people that have that power to make those changes?

It's mostly political. The conservatives argue no regulation of any kind is needed because the industry will self-regulate and capture all the leaking methane because it's lost money. (Mysteriously, the methane continues to leak, and oil & gas continues to lobby against requirements to fix the leak) As a secondary improvement, cheaper monitoring equipment might make the political fight easier to win. Another improvem…

>> I don't believe royalties are paid at the pad but rather further down the line

That's not true in any regime I'm aware of. Ownership and royalties are accounted for at the zone, which is well before the wellhead, let-alone downstream. Any loss between where the gas is produced and the final sale is known as "shrinkage" which can be allocated to different buckets, most commonly fuel and flaring. I'm not sure where leakage would be accounted for, probably "Transmission" or "Distribution".

What's criminal is that unaccounted for gas (known as UAF) is widely measured on the end-user distribution network, so I'd be very surprised if Oil Co. didn't have all the information they need to figure out loss from the wellhead. They either can't be bothered to amalgamate the data or just don't want to know the answer (or do and keep it secret).

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